A Step Towards the Light
by JasperK
Summary: "Lina, in my weakest moment, it was you that protected me..." What was it that a child could do? Lina & Vash (Set just after the Fifth Moon incident)


_Spoilers: Trigun vol 2, Trigun Maximum vol 1_

* * *

"Are you … okay?"

Vash glared over his glasses at the little girl clutching her bag of groceries. She looked about ten or eleven years old. She timidly approached him, her dark eyes wide and curious. He tried to remember what she had said; he was too tired and disorientated to deal with a child.

"Who are you?" She asked.

He closed his eyes, feeling the weight of his existence crushing down on him. He did not want to be himself any more. How could he answer that question?

"Mister, are you sick?"

If heartache were a disease, he wished its symptoms were fever and chills, at least those were treatable. He flinched as he felt something rough brush face. He opened his eyes and found that she was holding a piece of bread broken off the baguette she carried. She set down her groceries and crouched beside him.

"Granny says it's the best bread in the city."

She took a bite out of the piece she offered him and then held it out to him again. For some reason that made him smile. The cheeky little girl!

"You don't smell so good." She wrinkled her nose and waved the bread at him. "I know, come home with me. Granny could give you some water. I don't have any with me."

"Go home to your parent's girl." He said gently, his voice hoarse from disuse. "You should not be talking to strangers."

"Ain't got none. 's just me and Granny. You could come if you like. Then there'd be you, me and Granny. Besides you're not a stranger, Granny says strangers are only friends we don't know yet."

He stared at her, the hurt in his heart too great to process this vulnerability of spirit.

She picked up her bag of groceries and held out the bread.

"Take it."

He was so hungry he had forgotten how to feel hunger. To take the bread would be to awaken it like a ravening lion again.

"C'mon, it's good bread." She took another bite of his bread and held it out to him again. The audacity of it all!

He shifted, trying not to wince in front of her, and reached out with his right hand. Just before he took hold of it, she gave a laugh and darted back, snatching it out of his grasp. He let his hand fall in confusion and hurt. She was only teasing him?

Yet, in the next moment, she held it out again.

"You've gotta earn it!" She waved it through the air. "C'mon, follow me!"

Earn it? Something other than the endless despair and the self-flagellation of tormented memories ticked over in his mind.

"C'mon!" She waved it.

"Okay." He said to see how she would react.

The smile on her face broadened. She waved the bread and walked to the end of the alley, then checked to see if he had moved. He took a deep breath, steeling himself against the pain, and then hauled himself to his feet on the dumpster beside him. She gazed up at him, her eyes widening as he stood, as if he somehow frightened her. He watched as she knitted her forehead into a determined frown. She abruptly held out the bread again, but this time broke off half and handed it to him as he joined her at the mouth of the alley.

"You get half now, and half when we get home." She told him and shoved it into his hand. "C'mon."

It was a relief to follow someone, even if it was a cheeky young child. He did not have to think of his own path, he simply walked in the footsteps of another. They walked almost a quarter ile before they came to a small homestead on the edge of the city. It was a little run down, but seemed homely, and it was too big a place for a girl and her grandmother. He wondered what sorrow lurked here. What had happened to the child's parents? Earn it, she had said. Yes, he would, it was better than sitting starving in the alley. The bread was soft, but his throat was dry, and it was only by nibbling small pieces that he could get it down. It took him the whole walk to finish half a handful of bread.

.

She forgot the bargain she had made with him when she reached the line of rocks that demarcated the edge of their property. She leaped the rocks and ran through the open front door of the house.

"Granny! I brought a friend home! He's hungry."

"Ah, that's good. Lina, don't just dump the groceries on the table!"

"But he needs water!"

"Lina!"

He stood at the edge of the property, knowing his fate was up to her grandmother. The girl darted outside, running with her hand over the top of the metal cup. She skidded to a halt in front of him and just about shoved the water in his face.

"Drink!" She dug the bread out of her waistcoat pocket and held it out. "There."

He downed the water in one gulp. Nothing had ever tasted so wonderfully sweet. He ate the bread in two mouthfuls after that. His stomach cramped and protested, but he could already feel the difference it made.

"Come in!" She waved him after her. "Granny's making soup for supper; she'll let you have some."

"Lina, oh goodness!"

He did not have the strength to look at the dismay in her face now that he had heard it in her voice.

"Go in Lina." He said softly to the girl who was staring at her grandmother. "Thank you for the bread and water."

"Lina, who is that?" Her grandmother's voice sounded shocked, and closer.

He glanced up, as the old woman hobbled energetically over to them with her stick.

"My new friend. He wants soup and water and bread." She raised her hand to her mouth and said in a stage whisper as if he did not stand behind her. "And he really needs a bath!"

"He needs more than a bath, Lina."

He was astonished at how sadly sympathetic the grandmother's voice was. She gazed up at him with surprisingly understanding eyes. She hobbled over and peered up at him.

"What's your name, kid?"

He gaped at her dumbfounded. No one had called him kid in years.

"I'm Sheryl, and this is my granddaughter Lina." She put a hand on the girl's shoulder.

"Ah." A name? What name should he give? Not his name, he did not want to be Vash the Stampede any longer. No, not his own name. Ah, what name should he choose? His mind was a roaring blank. Ah, Rem, what name? Oh! Ah, yes, Rem had a precious name of her lost love. No, he had no right to use such a name. It would be better to use his own name before using such a precious one. But something similar? The peace settled in his heart then, something like her lost love, but not quite. "Ericks." He managed.

"Ericks." Sheryl said with a smile. "Come and sit at the table. I have some soup."

He ate the soup. She had given him only a very small bowl and a small chunk of bread, which puzzled him.

"Uh, granny, ah, Sheryl." He held up his empty bowl.

"When did you last eat?" She asked him, putting the lid on the soup, rather than hurrying over with a full ladle.

He considered this. Some time on the bus on the way to Jeneora Rock. He had no idea how long ago that was; the days had merged into one long drawn out blur of horror.

"I don't know." He breathed as he tried to shove away the terrible memories that crowded his mind.

"Your body won't be able to handle too much food at once, you'll be sick." She explained. "You can eat again in half an hour. In the mean time, how about a bath? I have some old clothes that might fit you."

He was starving! What did she know of him? He supposed she had some truth in those words; his stomach was so energetically digesting the soup that he was feeling a little queasy.

He blamed the tiredness, the pain and the queasiness, on how easy it was for Sheryl to shoo him outside and make him strip off in the back yard between the house and the tomas stall.

"C'mon, kid, nothing I ain't seen in my long life." She pointed to a tin tub beside a shower platform and sent Lina inside to put the kettle on for hot water. "I had eight brothers and two of my own sons. And I know how you men folk fuss, but bathing is good, off with those clothes. I'll get some of Hugh's old things; he was about your size."

Lina poured in the second kettle by the time he had exhaustedly managed to remove his second boot. Sheryl returned with a neat stack of clothes, towels and a large bar of soap.

He checked the girl was inside and dropped the dusty cape he had worn. Sheryl's eyes, instead of widening in horror, became a crumpled frown of melancholy. He wondered what had happened, he reminded her of someone, he knew that much. He struggled with his leather body armor; it was so caked with sweat, blood and dust that it stuck to him. She eventually came over when she realized he was getting nowhere with one hand. He began to cry then, overwhelmed. She helped him out of his clothes, took him by the hand, and helped him into the tub. He sat there letting her pour the water over him, and wiping the sweat, blood and dirt off him with the washrag in her old calloused hands. She spoke gently, and unusually made no comment about his scars, that was the first thing people asked him about, or went quiet and stared uncomfortably. Thinking about his scars, he pondered Meryl's reaction. She had stared, but had startled him by not asking him about them, but rather taking the discussion to a deeper level. She had acknowledged his philosophy, and his way of life. He had been so astounded by that reaction, that he had challenged her. He felt his heart lift slightly as he recalled how sharp she had been in her response. So, she had noticed his scars, and not only in a detached intellectual manner in which she had first presented. Her reaction did not offer the usual reactions of alarm and disgust, which meant … what was the point? That was in the past now, he sighed feeling the heaviness of his fate settle on his shoulders. He hoped she and her tall partner had found their way out of the city. His mind shuddered away from what had happened. Something else to think about, quickly or he was going to throw up the little he had managed to eat. Meryl, no, something else, oh, the big girl had also been there. How had she reacted? Freaked out over his prosthetic, that was it, and had put in a Freudian slip. Now that he was keeping track she had a collection of entertaining speech maladies.

The little girl hovered around in the background, staring at him with large eyes. Like Milly, what attracted her attention the most was that he did not have a left arm. The remaining stump fascinated her, and she had almost reached out to touch it before her grandmother had warned her off. "Lina." He had seen her walk back into the house flexing her own left hand.

He followed Sheryl back into the house, now feeling exhausted from having sat in the warm water, on top of hungry, tired and emotionally drained. He ate the second portion of soup, struggling to keep his eyes open. Sheryl vanished into the other rooms of the house and returned as Lina had worked up the courage to sit on the chair opposite him, and was staring avidly at his left arm, which was concealed by the long shirtsleeve.

"Ericks, come through here." Sheryl invited. She took him into the passage and pushed open a door. The room was small and had a wardrobe against one wall. A bed was situated against the opposite wall.

"This will be your room while you are with us."

He turned to her, and she held up a finger.

"Go and sleep, explanations and excuses can happen when you are well enough to stand and not tremble with the effort."

"Thank you." He said with such relief that she reached up and patted his cheek.

"You youngsters today, the trouble you have to face just to live. Rest now, you are safe here."

She surreptitiously shifted the porcelain pot, so that he noticed its presence, then slipped out and shut the door. He looked down at the pot that served as an indoor lavatory. Well, that was a start. He'd build them an indoor bathroom. With designs going through his mind, he walked over to the bed, picked up the blankets and was surprised to find pajamas folded on the pillow. More changing? He sluggishly tugged off his shirt and trousers and with more effort than he was sure it should take, he pulled on the sleep shirt and trousers. He slipped into the bed, his foot touched something and he flinched upright again. He lifted the blankets and sheets and stared. At the foot of his bed, the old woman had placed a pile of heat packs. Oh, how wonderful, what an amazing woman. He grabbed them and shoved them onto the aching place on his leg, his neck, and on his head. It drew the headache out somehow. The fourth he hugged to his chest. Ahh, how had she known? This old woman had dealt with exhausted, hurt people before. He fell asleep before he could speculate further.

.

He woke up and blinked at the ceiling feeling disorientated. It was no ceiling he recognized, but on the plus side, the room had no bars on the windows. Nor did it have the antiseptic smell of a hospital. No, this was a vast improvement on most disorientated awakenings he'd had. There was a movement to his left and he glanced to his left to find a young girl straddling a chair, her arms resting on the backrest.

"Ericks you really awake?"

What did that mean?

"Wha?" He coughed. His throat felt so dry.

"You were talking in your sleep. Who is Rem?"

He flinched and turned his face away from her, he could not keep a smile on it now.

"Sorry." She mumbled. "I'll tell Granny you're awake."

He sat up groggily. Ah yes, he was safe, with that realization all his strength gave out. He flopped back onto his pillow, his mind drifting. Ugh he had an awful taste in his mouth, how long had he been asleep? It felt like a few days, not just a night.

He took a deep breath and then blew it out slowly. What had he done? What right did he have to impose on these people?

"Ericks!"

He turned his head as Sheryl shuffled in, her stick in the crook of her arm while she carried a tray laden with the most delicious soup. His stomach rumbled its appreciation loudly. She put it down on the chair Lina had vacated.

"Can you move?" She asked.

"Yes."

"Then sit up and eat, and more importantly, drink. You've not used the chamber pot in three days; I'm not hauling you off to the hospital with kidney stones!"

What? She'd checked? He would definitely have to build that bathroom if she was going to monitor his daily business. Fegh, he would dig a long drop first if she was that pushy, and he had never had a kidney stone in his life. She hovered over him until he had started eating the soup, then she had left the task of observing him to Lina.

"Does it hurt?"

He slurped the soup off the spoon, not knowing how to answer that.

"Does what hurt?" He asked evasively.

"Your arm." Her eyes were fixed on his left arm.

"There is nothing there." He smiled slightly. "How can it hurt?"

She looked relieved.

"Granny says I'm not allowed to ask personal questions."

"Mmh." He ate his soup. She was worried about him, which was sweet. He did not want to worry those trusting eyes with the trials of his life. What was it to a child to know about the phantom feedback his nerves sometimes gave off? As if his left arm was cramping, but there was nothing there to cramp, and no way to relieve it. He was an old hand at pain; he knew how to mask it, or at the very least endure it.

She took the tray with her when she left and he lay back, half dozing, trying to think. He smiled slightly as the insurance girls came into his mind's eye again. He missed them now in the quiet of things. The words that Meryl had said then came to him, 'put aside your guns, disconnect from everything and live life quietly'. Well, he'd lost his gun in the chaos, so that was the first part done. Then he'd ended up here, he did not even know what the city was called, which was good enough for the second part. Living quietly? Well, he would have to see, he never had much luck in that regard. Perhaps he could work at it. At the very least, he would stay long enough with these folk to 'earn' his stay. That short insurance girl had firmly ensconced herself into the voices of his internal dialogue. And now he had a new voice. He smiled up at the ceiling. That child, what a gift she was, how had she known what words to say that would turn his heart around towards the light again?


End file.
